Nightcrawler: The Beginning
by Rhiannon Merdon
Summary: Traces Kurt's past from the emergence of his powers. Again, the situations are completely imagined, not borrowed.


**Nightcrawler: The Beginning**

I heard them break in. The door creaked, pushing away the rags stuffed in as a threshold. My parents, deeper sleepers than I, awoke when the heavy boot sounded on the floor. Terrified, I lay still, hoping I would not be seen. Gunshots roared, and my mother screamed. The screams continued, high, piercing shrieks, and mine joined in. I fell out of bed and came to my senses. The telephone hung in the kitchen. I would have to walk past my parent's bedroom...

I crept out of my room on my hands and knees, shirt sticking to my clammy skin. As I passed my parent's room, I made the mistake of looking in. Force of habit, I guess.

One man stood over my mother, boots planted on her arms. A gag – one of my father's socks – was in her mouth, and her beautiful brown hair was black and shiny with blood in the darkness. My father lay still in bed, one arm thrown over his head...or where his head should have been. The sheets were red, even in the moonlight.

The other man, shotgun by his side, straddled my mother, and in the relative silence I could hear his grunts as he raped her.

I screamed, fear and fury combined in one suicidal cry, and raced for the telephone. 9-1-1, I dialed again and again. But there was no dial tone. I turned, and the second man was behind me, shotgun cocked, pants half on. It was comical, but my pants were not wet from laughter.

Suddenly, I was outside. I heard him pull the trigger, and the click of the empty barrels. This time I did laugh, and reappeared in front of him. His eyes were livid, drink and shock combined, as he stared at me. The shotgun fell from his hands, useless, and I grabbed it with a new, prehensile appendage without thinking. His gasp as he turned and ran echoed in my mind, but it did not show on my face. All I felt was fury and fear.

One man was still there. I flipped down the hallway with a trained acrobat's ability. He was speaking to my mother. I could see as well as hear him now. He removed the gag from her mouth – how dare he touch her! – And spoke in a cruel hiss. "I dunno why he left so soon; that kid a yours must have called the police. Sent him to take care of him. Didn't hear no shots, but the kid's dead.

"Wanna know why I took out the gag, bitch?"

-How dare he?-

"...So I could hear you scream..."

The man's scream echoed in my ears long after he was dead.

I gathered my mother up in my arms and ran outside. She lolled frighteningly in my arms, blood dripping from her head and legs. Her nightgown was filthy. I laid her down outside and took it off, reaching through the window for the curtains. Tenderly, I rolled them around her. The highway was far away. But what did I care for distance now? I had to save her...

This time I did it on purpose. The air around me shredded for a moment, and then I was standing by the highway, whose lights had been barely visible from my house. Blue, acrid smoke evaporated around me in an instant. The city wasn't far now. I reached it in minutes, appearing in various places on the way. At the hospital, I caught a glimpse of myself accidentally in the glass windows. The only thing I recognized was my black hair, more like my father's. My skin had turned blue – navy blue! - And my eyes shone yellow. My teeth were sharp, and my tail, with a point like the paintings of demon's tails in the church, was still holding the worthless shotgun, bobbing behind me.

I gently put my mother down by the emergency room door. She looked up, regaining consciousness. She murmured something and I leaned closer.

"From human demons, I have been delivered by a minion of Hell...O Lord, save me..."

She screamed again, endless, wrenching screams, and as the door opened I vanished to the rooftop. I left the shotgun. Maybe they would fingerprint it...

The nurse who had come out gave a small sighing gasp,

-_There's no way I should have heard that. I _did_ hear it, I did! Oh God what happened to me?-_

And called out to another nurse to bring a gurney. They rolled my mother onto it and strapped her down. She was now sobbing uncontrollably and crying out to God, writhing against the gurney, crying out that she had seen a damned creature, a demon, and...

I turned away, crying.

There was an enormous old cathedral just outside of town, looked after by one old priest and two boys, which I had often admired. The Gothic styling was a comfort, as were the flickering red candles lit by other penitents by the altar, and the statues of the saints. I sank to my knees by the altar and wept.

Footsteps behind me, the arthritic walk of the ancient, made me rise hours later at dawn, eyes finally dry. The old priest looked down at me from sightless, cloudy eyes.

"Do you need to make a confession, my son?"

His voice, dry and creaky, was loud in the echoing cathedral.

I followed him into the confessional, though it felt sacrilegious in my current state, and I told him all. I spoke of the remnants of my faith, left by my mother; of the night's happenings; and mainly of the man I had killed. The priest listened quietly and prayed with me. My first heartfelt prayer since I was very young. He thought the transformation I had spoken of was metaphorical.

"I seek sanctuary, Father. Allow me to serve the Lord with you."

I felt it to be a sort of penance as well as a refuge.

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully.


End file.
